Artificial Intelligence has existed since the 1950s, but it’s a boom today! AI/ ML is powered to handle high-volume repetitive tasks that replace the human workforce. AI can reduce and automate manual tasks that take time and avoid human errors.
Artificial Intelligence has made a difference in almost every industry we come across. There have been life-changing methods from manufacturing to academics to science, commerce, and technology. Retailers have invested heavily in digital transformations to adapt to customer expectations and prosper in the new reality. Given the potential advantages, AI and analytics enabled by enhanced technology are critical components of their business plan.
AI assists shops or stores in a variety of ways. Artificial intelligence in the retail industry enables merchants to provide better shopping experiences to their consumers. Only some shops use AI due to the exorbitant expenses and the need for more awareness of this cutting-edge technology.
Computer Vision offers various applications, from self-driving automobiles to factory automation. The use of AI – Artificial Intelligence to deliver new levels of scalability, precision, and speed to this application is an everyday underlying technical basis for these solutions.
Almost every industry, including retail, is being transformed by computer vision. More firms are investing in increasing their computer vision skills as they grasp the promise of computer vision.
Predictive Maintenance:
Inventory management in retail is critical on the store floor, which is constantly changing. By notifying mistakenly stocked shelves or empty ones, AI in retail can relieve some of the pressure on the staff. Deep learning computer vision models identify missing or incorrectly stored items.
AI can also notify employees when a product is out of stock and alert them to damaged products and erroneous price labels. This allows them to concentrate on delivering superior customer service and making customized suggestions.
Self-checkout System:
Computer vision may also overcome this problem. You could even employ machine vision to eliminate the need for queues. Self-service checkouts are another excellent method to cut costs while offering quick service.
Customers are not required to scan barcodes at these establishments. The technology merely records whatever items individuals place in their baskets and bills them immediately when they leave. Customers are used to smoothing internet interactions. They now demand the same amount of comfort in-store. Self-service checkouts are one approach to provide it to them.
Self-service checkouts, also known as assisted checkouts, are machines that allow customers to scan barcodes and pay without the assistance of a human cashier. These automatic checkout systems enable more customers to check out in less time.
Many other things could be easy with AI in the Retail industry, but these were the two things. But let us explain to you better what DTC has tried to do. Read our earlier blog about Unveiling the power of Artificial Intelligence in the retail sector!
The Retail Industry is more than just two problems. Do you know the major problem that they face before it comes to the store?
Bar Coding:
- Making a scanner or code is a very tedious process. It isn’t easy to keep changing the lot now and then. Every time a price fluctuates, many Barcodes should be changed.
- Store staff may need to put in the discount price when discounts apply to bar-coded products. This, in turn, can cause confusion and delays at the checkout counter, causing inconvenience for the consumer, the checkout clerk, and other customers in line.
- A barcode reader, which is relatively costly, is required to use barcode technology. If it is a 2D barcode scanner, the prices are significantly higher.
- If a barcode cannot be scanned for any reason, the clerk must read the matching numeric code and manually input it. Because clerks have become accustomed to scanning barcodes quickly and automatically without additional effort, their lack of experience with manual code entry may cause them to be delayed and imprecise in inputting the information, thus delaying the checkout process.
- Barcodes printed on ripped packaging, smeared, smudged, or otherwise damaged can cause extra scanning issues. Suppose the associated numeric code is also illegible due to damage. In that case, the checkout procedure may be severely slowed while another package of identical goods is located and brought to the checkout counter for scanning.
Cashier:
- And there is one more major problem that the Retail Industry faces now and then—the shortage of Human Resources and their maintenance.
- When a Retail industry hires, any person sitting at the Cash Counter must be fully trained. If you see any POS Machine, it will have several buttons with numbers and codes. This involves a lot of training, and there is no assurance that the person would sustain for a long time.
- It is not easy to hire people every time to check up on things for the POS, and the challenging task is if the cashier sees a barcode, he cannot process it for Sale.
And to solve these two crucial problems, DTC Infotech has been on the journey to make things easy in the Retail Sector. We have a camera – EdgeVision, which can detect any product using Image Classification and AI.
What is Image Classification? How is it used with AI and CV?
Now, enormous amounts of data are generated due to the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) becoming pervasive technologies. Artificial Intelligence’s most significant achievements are based on picture recognition and categorization.
Data might be speech, text, pictures, or a combination. Images, whether pictures or movies account for a significant portion of worldwide data generation.
But how can computers learn to recognize and categorize images? Computers can analyze and recognize pictures and some of the most prevalent methods for categorizing such images.
Image segmentation and object identification are significant challenges in computer vision. They both serve as the foundation for various computer vision challenges.
Image classification applications are used in medical imaging, object recognition in satellite images, traffic control systems, brake light detection, machine vision, and other applications.
What did DTC do with Image Classification to make things easy in the Retail Industry?
I presume all of you go grocery shopping. At a Hypermarket, you find a variety of Fruits and Vegetables, not only that but even a diverse variety of MRP Products too. You know you are picking up a Kashmiri or a Shimla Apple because it has been labelled. If you go to the Cashier without the Barcode or QR Code, could they identify the apple category?
No, because it all looks the same. For example, even with Dates, Vegetables, Onions, carrots, Beans, and many others. So wide varieties of fruits and vegetables look the same but are priced differently. Many MRP products could be identified without any barcodes or QR codes.
Cosmetics could be more precise with the shades and the colors that go with the similar tinge. That\’s when our camera could detect precisely the shade, the price, and the quantity.
At the checkout, we help the customer to Self-Checkout and generate an automatic Invoice integrating the Weight and the price. The customer can use a Debit/Credit Card or Digital payment to pay their bills and show the things they brought to the Security for the second round of checks as usual. This can cut down the Bar Coding and Cashier.
But How Will it Benefit a Customer?
- The customer pays the right price for any product.
- The customer saves time waiting for the queue or the missing bar codes.
- The customers need not pack the groceries separately.
But How Will it Benefit a Hypermarket?
- Saving a lot of time on the
- Training
- No cashier
- No bar codes
- Time-Saving
- Customer Retention
How We Will Know How Many Products are in the Store?
- We will ask you for the list of Products and each product of each variety
- We will train our model with all the products you wish to sell
- If tomorrow a price fluctuates, we will train you how to update it within a minute
- You can update us if you want to add or delete any product. We can do it within a few minutes
Wait, Hang on! Do You Want to Know Other AI Solutions that DTC Could Help You With?
AI is changing the way businesses work. Through cutting-edge AI services and solutions, we use AI to our customers’ maximum advantage. DTC Infotech is a worldwide AI firm that assists enterprises in adopting an AI-First approach and developing intelligent AI-powered digital goods and solutions.
Benefits of Implementing AI
- Higher Efficiency
- Lower Costs
- Enhanced Quality
- Reduced Downtime
Read more about how you can implement AI in Manufacturing, Retail and Healthcare here! If you want to understand more about the product and want to implement the same in your field, do feel free to reach out to us at DTC Infotech.
